Michael Pachter suspects that The Last of Us, the next big Sony-exclusive from Naughty Dog, will also see a later release on the PlayStation 4. He couches his suspicion with the fact that Watch Dogs is getting a release on both current-gen and next-gen hardware.

This ties into Pachter’s expectation that, with the next generation of hardware, the “third-party exclusive” will die out entirely, unless sufficient money changes hands to off-set the revenue lost from not releasing one’s game on all (or most) available hardware.

In the case of The Last of Us, though, this could go either way. If a next-gen version were revealed now, those planning to purchase a PlayStation 4 would likely hold off from buying the PlayStation 3 version of the game. And, if it’s announced later, those who’ve bought the game on PlayStation 3, and then buy a PlayStation 4, probably aren’t going to want to buy the game again. Considering how much overlap there’s likely to be in set of “those who want to get The Last of Us” and “those who plan to buy a PlayStation 4,” it’s unclear just who a next-gen release of the game would be intended to serve.

At the same time, as a bridging title, it could soften the blow of the PS4’s lack of backwards compatibility.